Our Aussie Blog

Cooking Time for This Yummy Aussie Treat is approx. 30 Minutes with 15 Minutes Prep Time.

Main Ingredients (for lamingtons that serve 15)

Melted butter to grease the pan

75g (1/2 cup) self-raising flour

75g (1/2 cup) plain flour

70g (1/2 cup) cornflour

6 eggs at room temperature

215g (1 cup) caster sugar

1 tablespoon boiling water

170g (2 cups) desiccated coconut

Chocolate Icing Ingredients

300g (2 cups) icing sugar mixture

35g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder

60ml (1/4 cup) milk

60ml (1/4 cup) boiling water

Cooking Method

Preheat your oven to 160°C. Brush a 20 x 30cm lamington pan with melted butter to lightly grease. Line the base and sides of the tray with nonstick baking paper, allowing it to overhang a little.

Sift the combined flours together into a large bowl – repeat this twice.

Use an electric beater to whisk the eggs in a large, dry bowl until thick and pale. Gradually add the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking well each time until mixture is thick and sugar dissolves.

Sift the combined flours over the egg mixture. Pour the boiling water down the side of the bowl and use a large metal spoon to gently fold until just combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface.

Bake in your oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn the cake onto a wire rack, cover with a clean tea towel and set it aside overnight to cool.

Trim the edges off the cake and cut it into 15 squares.

To make the chocolate icing, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a medium bowl. Add the milk and water and stir until it’s smooth.

Spread the desiccated coconut over a plate. Use two forks to dip one cake square into the warm icing to evenly coat and then allow any excess icing to drip off. Use your fingers to roll the cake in the coconut to evenly coat, then place on a wire rack.

Repeat this method with the remaining cake squares in the icing and coconut and then set aside for 1 hour or until the icing sets.

Ingredients:

125g Flour
150g Sugar
1 Cup Coconut
1 Cup Rolled Oats
100g Butter
1 Tbsp. Golden Syrup
1/2 tsp. Bicarb Soda
2 Tbsp. Boiling Water

Method:

Mix together flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats. Melt butter and golden syrup, dissolve Bicarb Soda in the boiling water and add to butter and golden syrup.

Make a well in the centre of the flour, stir in liquid.

Place in spoonfuls on greased trays and bake 15 to 20 mins at 180°C

A real favourite and probably our most known song outside of Australia.

WALTZING MATILDA
A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

Oh! There once was a swagman camped in a Billabong
Under the shade of a Coolabah tree;
And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda my darling,
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag –
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the water-hole,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;
And he sang as he stowed him away in his tucker-bag,
‘You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’

Down came the Squatter a-riding his thoroughbred;
Down came Policemen – one, two, and three.
‘Whose is the jumbuck you’ve got in the tucker-bag?
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’

But the swagman, he up and he jumped in the water-hole,
Drowning himself by the Coolabah tree;
And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the Billabong
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’

We have Australian made pewter belt buckles depicting a scene from Waltzing Matilda, view them here.

One of the most unique native animals from Australia is the platypus and here we have a list of fun and informative facts about the platypus – we hope you find them interesting.

1. The platypus is one of the few venomous mammals.
2. It’s also a monotreme which means it lays eggs when producing it’s offspring.
3. The male platypus has a spur on it’s hind legs which contains venom capable of causing severe pain to humans. The female has a spur but it does not produce venom.
4. The platypus has been used as a mascot at sporting events and also appears on the 20c coin in Australia. The platypus was one of the mascots at the Sydney 2000 Olympics in Australia along with an echidna and kookaburra.
5. In the past, the platypus was hunted for it’s fur but that stopped in the 20th century.
6. There is only one species of platypus but it was called many things in the past by British settlers including: watermole, duckbill, duckmole. Often it’s referred to as the duck-billed platypus.
7. The platypus is covered in dense brown fur that traps a layer of insulating air and keeps the animal warm.
8. The platypus has webbed feet (to aid with swimming) and a bill that resembles a duck bill.
9. The platypus uses it’s tail for storage of fat reserves and the weight of the animal can be between 700 grams to 2.4kg – quite a variation in size.
10. It’s semi-aquatic and inhabits small streams and rivers over a wide distance from Tasmania to Qld – it’s actual distribution is not fully known.
11. When the first settlers found the platypus and sent sketches and a pelt to scientists back in Britain they thought it must be a hoax or a mocked up animal – they even checked whether several other animals had been stitched together to make it.
12. Natural predators of the platypus include snakes, crocodiles, water rats, goannas, hawks, owls and eagles.
13. The platypus is often nocturnal, but not always, if the sky is overcast they may come out during the day – they seem to be shy creatures.
14. It was once said that the platypus is proof that God has a sense of humour.

For all of the products we offer featuring this native Australian animal, click here.

1. You still think of Kylie Minogue as “That girl from Neighbours” (Long-running Australian TV Soap).
2. You know that many people have the impression that everyone in Australia is just like Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee (Crikey, we’re not quite like that, you know!).
3. You know that Sydney 2000 was one of our proudest moments in history – we rock! (The Sydney Olympics was a wonderful event for all Australians – we’re very proud!).
4. One Simple Word: Skippy (the smartest TV kangaroo to ever live, 6 or 7 times!).
5. You know that there is a universal place called “woop woop” located in the middle of nowhere… no matter where you actually are (if someone lives out of the main cities, it’s generally said that they live out in “woop woop”).
6. You have some time in your life slept with Aeroguard on in the summer – maybe even used it as perfume (Aeroguard is bug spray you can spray or roll on to your skin, very useful for keeping the “mozzies” away).
7. You say “no worries” quite often, whether you realise it or not (no worries is our version of “not a problem”).
8. You’ve ordered a piece of meat the size of your head and only paid $15.00 for it at your local RSL club (Returned Servicemen’s Leagues Clubs – a great place to eat and have a few drinks at a great price!).
9. You think footballers dressing up in drag on TV is funny (seems to be a very popular activity among our “football” players, that is, Rugby League and AFL, NOT Soccer).
10. You believe that “stubbies” can either be worn or drunk (a small bottle of beer is a stubby, as are short mens shorts!).

• Redback Spider
• Funnel Web Spider
• Scorpions
• Centipedes
• Scrub Ticks
• Mosquitoes
• March Flies
• Sand Flies
• Bull Ants
• Red Belly Black Snakes
• Taipans
• Brown Snakes
• Tiger Snakes
• Death Adders
• Crocodiles
• Great White Sharks
• Grey Nurse Sharks
• Tiger Sharks
• Hammerhead Sharks
• Wobbegongs
• Stingrays
• Stonefish
• Rock Cod
• Fire Cod
• Blue Rings
• Sea Wasps
• Blue Bottles
• Sea Snakes

Most Australian’s would remember the Ettamogah Pub as the cartoon pub featured in the old Australia Post magazine by cartoonist Ken Maynard. The first ‘Ettamogah Pub’ was built 10km north of Albury, NSW and since then others have been built in Sydney, the Sunshine Coast in QLD and in Cunderdin Western Australia.

It really is quite a quirky building where you can get a beer and most Aussies enjoy visiting them when they are in the area.

Ettamogah Pub - photo credit: © Bryan Garnett-Law

One of the products we’re proudest to carry on Australian Native T-Shirts is the range of pewter figurines and belt buckles made by Aradon Pewter. 

Being an Australian owned and operated family business, we’re proud to support another business that offers 100% Australian made products and it’s also run by a family, just like ours! We find that Aradon really care about the product they make and the quality is excellent.

One of the pewter series offered by Aradon is the Australian Heritage range and it features scenes from the past and present including stockmen, shearers, Aboriginal figurines, swagmen and other country icons including Ned Kelly – our most famous outlaw! If you’re looking for Australian bush icons, the heritage range is the place to browse.

And of course we couldn’t miss the huge range of pewter Australian animal figurines – they go so well with our Aussie animal t-shirts and gifts! Both small and large figurines are made with the largest being just 10cm or so in size, the detail around the animals is amazing.

Many animals are covered including Aussie reptiles like the goanna and crocodile, birds like the cockatoo and kookaburra, unique natives like the kangaroo, koala, echidna and platypus and so much more – check out our full range of Australian animal pewter figurines here.

Another range of course is the wide range of hand finished pewter belt buckles from Aradon. Unlike a lot of the poor imitations, these buckles are actually made in Australia from pewter and the quality cannot be matched by imports that only claim to be pewter. Aradon produce Australian buckles, country designs, sporting/rodeo buckles and motorcycle logo buckles – all fully licensed.

So if you’re looking to buy Australian, be sure to browse the range of pewter figurines and buckles by Aradon Pewter!

Here we have a few fun and interesting facts from Australia – We will add more of these every now and then, sure makes for an interesting read!

• Australia is the worlds biggest island and also the smallest continent (bizarre right?!).
• The largest organic construction on earth is in Australia and is known as the Great Barrier Reef (been there, must visit!).
• Tasmania is know to have the cleanest air in the world (who knew?).
• In 1954 Bob Hawke (former Prime Minister) made it into the Guinness Book of Records – why? He drank 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds (he was a bit of a larrikin wasn’t he?).
• There are 1500 hundred species of Australian spiders (eek!).
• There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only 24.4 million people (as of April 2017).
• Australia has the biggest number of wild one humped camels in the world (i don’t really know what to say about that).
• The city of Melbourne in Australia has one of the largest Greek populations in the world outside of Athens Greece (not surprising).

No wonder they call Australia the land of wonders – this is just a drop in the ocean of fun facts available for our great land.